Honesty costs official heavily

RAWALPINDI - Honesty is the best policy; however, the superintendent legal branch of Rawal Town Municipal Administration (RTMA) had to suffer a lot because of his honesty.Nadeem Akhter, 55, a BPS-16 official, has been suffering for his honesty and his salary has been stopped for the last six months as he allegedly refused to bow down before the corrupt and mighty. While talking to The Nation, Nadeem said that he was serving as superintendent legal branch RTMA. He was forced by TMO Sardar Tashfeen to receive bribe from people and fill his (TMO) pockets. "I refused to obey the orders of TMO who got annoyed and transferred me to Potohar Town on October 31, 2013. The TMO Potohar Town too did not tolerate me and sent me to Solid Waste and Management Department," he said."My transfer from RTMA to CDGR by TMO is illegal, as according to the law Secretary local govt is only authorised to transfer the officials of town municipal administrations to other departments," Nadeem said while showing legal documents."The mighty TMO is behaving above the law as he refused to accept the advice of District Coordination Officer to withdraw his illegal orders in that case," he said. He said that DCO wrote TMO three letters in this regard but all were thrown into dustbin by the latter. He said that TMO used abusive language against him whenever he visited his office for the solution of his unending miseries. He said that it was very difficult for him to provide food to his family because he had not been paid his salary for the last six months. "I will commit suicide along with my family outside the office of RTMA TMO if he did not release my salary within 24 hours," Nadeem threatened.RTMA TMO Sardar Tashfeen, however, when contacted by this scribe, admitted his mistake saying, "Yes, I committed mistake by transferring Nadeem to the department of CDGR. I am looking into matter and will call back him soon." He said that he wrote a letter to secretary to solve the problem of Nadeem. Responding to a query, TMO rebuffed the allegations that he forced the superintendent to receive bribe and fill his pockets. "Please don't publish this news in your paper as I am not expecting the highly reputed paper like The Nation to run such stories," TMO asked this scribe. Secretary local government and DCO Sajid Zafar Dall were not available for their comments.